Portability of tar features

Tar format acceptance

The goal of the first test is to verify whether the tar implementations accept a trivial archive of given type. The archive contains a single regular file and does not use any extensions other than additional timestamps that are stored by default.

For the purpose of the experiment, the following tar files were used:

• v7 format archive (with no magic),

• POSIX ustar archive,

• pre-POSIX ustar archive (with old magic and version values),

• pax archive (with extended metadata),

• GNU tar archive,

• GNU tar -G archive (where the -G option causes additional timestamps to be written),

• star format archive (the old format, not compatible with ustar),

• sun tar format archive (with extended metadata, alike pax).

It should be noted that the pre-POSIX ustar format and GNU tar format use the same values of magic bytes and version; however, they differ in the use of some header fields. Apparently, modern versions of GNU tar default not to use atime/ctime fields which could be confused with ustar's path prefix field. An additional archive with those fields explicitly forced was included to extend testing.

Implementation	v7	ustar	pre-ustar	pax	GNU	GNU -G	star	sun
GNU tar	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
libarchive	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
star	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
NetBSD pax	✓	✓	✓	P	✓	T	✓	P
busybox	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	T	✗	✗
Python	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	T	✓	✓
p7zip	✓	✓	✓	P	✓	T	✓	P
7-Zip	✓	✓	✓	W	✓	T	✓	P
WinRAR	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	P

✓: archive extracted correctly

✗: file rejected as invalid

P: file extracted correctly, pax headers extracted as files

T: timestamp incorrectly interpreted as path prefix

W: file extracted correctly, prints opaque header error warning

The conclusion is that all the tested implementations handle all common tar formats well. The more complete GNU format with additional timestamps confuses many tools; however, they are not used by default by GNU tar. The star format is accepted by most interpretations (taken as v7 tar); only busybox explicitly rejects it.

The pax format causes extended headers to be extracted as files by a few implementations.

Long pathnames

The v7 tar format stores pathnames in a fixed field 100 octets long. Since the string is null-terminated, this sets maximum filepath length at 99 octets. Newer tar formats support long pathnames in different ways.

The ustar format introduces additional 155-octet prefix field in the header. If the path is longer than 99 octets, it can be split at a path component boundary, and the 'prefix path' can be moved into this field. This gives a maximum path of up to 254 octets but the exact limitations depend on the actual possibility of splitting on path component. Implementations not supporting the ustar format would extract such file with partial (‘suffix’) path.

The pax format uses path extended attribute to store long paths. Therefore, the maximum path length is limited only by extended attribute member length. Non-compliant implementations will extract the file using short name stored in the file member (the value is implementation-defined) and possibly extract the extended attributes for user's inspection.

The GNU format uses additional L member preceding the file to store the long path. The maximum path length is limited only by maximum member size. Non-compliant implementations will extract the file using short name stored in the regular file member and may extract the long name as additional file.

The star format uses a prefix field similarly to ustar, and at the same offset. However, incompatibility may arise from the format lacking ustar magic. The xstar and newer formats are ustar-compatible.

Implementation	ustar	pax	GNU	star
GNU tar	✓	✓	✓	✗
libarchive	✓	✓	✓	✗
star	✓	✓	✓	✓
NetBSD pax	✓	✗	✓	✗
busybox	✓	✓	✓	✗
Python	✓	✓	✓	✓
p7zip	✓	✗	✓	✗
7-Zip	✓	✗	✓	✗
WinRAR	✓	✓	✓	✗

✓: file extracted correctly

✗: file extracted using partial path

All tested implementations support ustar and GNU formats for long paths. With the higher length limit, this makes the GNU format a clear winner. The pax format metadata is extracted to text files by the other implementations, making some degree of manual recovery possible. The star format long paths are supported only by the original implementation and Python tarfile module.

Large file sizes

The v7 format stores file size as octal number in a 12-octet field. The strict format uses 11 octets, with the 12th being a terminator. This results in a maximum file size of 8 GiB.

More lenient implementations allow for skipping the terminator, using 12 octal digits. This increases the limit to 64 GiB.

Furthermore, some implementations (including GNU tar) allow for storing the file sizes in binary (base-256) rather than octal form. This is signalled by setting the MSB of the first octet, and provides for 95-bit integer size, i.e. 32768 YiB (it's so big that we lack a better prefix for it).

Finally, the pax standard unsurprisingly provides a size extended attribute that can be used to specify file sizes as decimal number of any length. It might be useful if you ever need to store more than 32768 YiB.

Implementation	12-digit	base-256	pax
GNU tar	✓	✓	✓
libarchive	✓	✓	✓
star	✗	✓	✓
NetBSD pax	✓	✗	✗
busybox	✓	✓	✗
Python	✓	✓	✓
p7zip	✓	✓	✗
7-Zip	✓	✓	✗
WinRAR	✓	✓	✓

✓: file extracted correctly

✗: file truncated, rest of archive misinterpreted

Out of three ways to indicate large file sizes, 12-digit storage and base-256 encoding are supported by all but one tools. However, the 12-digit variant is not supported for writing GNU tar, libarchive (where it is technically supported but hard-disabled in code) or star which all switch to base-256 automatically. Therefore, base-256 format is more portable (and has much higher limit), though archives created by it will not work on NetBSD at the moment.

Given that the correct read of the remainder of the archive depends on correctly determining the data block size, unsupported large size effectively makes the archive unusable. The pax format may result in the correct size being written to a text file but the user has no trivial recovery means.

User and group information

In the v7 format, file ownership information is stored as numeric user and group identifiers. They are stored as 8-octet fields, therefore being limited to 7 octal digits (which are equivalent to 21-bit integer). While the maximum number is not likely to be a problem, using numeric identifiers rather than names does introduce problems when different systems use different user/group mappings.

Similarly to file size field, some implementations permit using all 8 octets for octal numbers, or base-256 encoding (however, this is less common than for file sizes). Those practices can be used to extend numeric identifiers to 24-bit and 63-bit integers respectively.

The ustar and GNU tar formats add username and group name fields that are 32-octet long (31 characters + null terminator).

The star format also uses username and group name fields, except they're located at different offsets and are 16-octet long. The format is only understood by star itself, and therefore was not included in the table.

Finally, the pax format provides extended attribute keys for both user and group numeric identifiers (stored in decimal) and names. This extension effectively removes the forementioned limitations.

Tested feature	Large numeric UID/GID			Long names
Implementation	8-digit	base-256	pax	32-octet	pax
GNU tar	✓	✓	✓	C	✓
libarchive	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
star	✗	✗	✓	✓	✓
NetBSD pax	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗
busybox	✓	✓	✗	✓	✗
Python	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
p7zip	✓	✗	✗	✓	✗

✓: user/group interpreted correctly

✗: user/group information ignored

C: user/group name concatenated with the field following it

The support for large numeric user and group identifiers is mostly consistent with support for large sizes, with the notable exception of star and p7zip not supporting base-256 encoding on these fields. The 8-octet variant is not used by common tools, making base-256 and pax two commonly possible choices. Choosing the former loses star support, the latter busybox tar support.

32-octet long user and group names are supported by most of the implementations. The notable exception is GNU tar that as of v1.30 relies on the null terminator being present and concatenates the values with the fields following them when it's not. GNU tar also truncates the name at 31 octets when writing the archive.

Windows implementations were skipped from the test since they do not seem to provide access to user/group information (7-Zip technical list mode provides user/group names but it's no different from p7zip).

Timestamps

Out of timestamps, the v7 format provides only for storing mtime. It is stored in 12-octet field, permitting 11 octal digits which are sufficient for 33-bit timestamps.

The documentation suggests that historically negative octal numbers might have been used for timestamps. However, none of the tested implementations seem to support that.

Again, some implementations permit using 12 octal digits and/or base-256 encoding. The former provides for 36 bits of data, the latter for 95-bit signed integer.

The GNU tar format provides additional fields for atime and ctime. However, it seems that modern versions of GNU tar do not use them by default. They need to be enabled explicitly via -G option, and they confuse some archivers (see tar format acceptance).

The star format provides octal atime and ctime fields as well, at different offsets than GNU tar. They are only supported by the original implementation.

Finally, the pax format provides atime, ctime and mtime extended attributes that are stored as decimal floating-point numbers. Therefore, they provide both unlimited range and precision.

Tested feature	Large positive mtime			Negative mtime		atime, ctime
Implementation	12-digit	b-256	pax	base-256	pax	GNU -G	pax
GNU tar	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓
libarchive	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
star	✗	✗	✓	✗	✓	✓	✓
NetBSD pax	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗
busybox	✓	✓	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗
Python	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✗
p7zip	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗
7-Zip	✓	✓	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗
WinRAR	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗

✓: timestamp interpreted correctly

✗: timestamp misinterpreted or ignored

The support for large positive mtimes formatted as 12-digit octal vs base-256 seems to be equal. However, similarly to the previous cases the 12-digit format is not written out of the box and requires manual code hacking, making base-256 the winner.

The support for negative mtimes provided by base-256 and pax format is largely equal to the support for the formats themselves. One notable exception is p7zip that does not seem to interpret negative mtimes as of 16.02. It is possible that updating it to match 7-Zip current would solve that.

As a curiosity, star seems to use large octal mtime values to indicate negative mtimes, making it incompatible with the other implementations.

The support for atime and ctime seems to be very limited. The tests were based on restoring atimes, given that ctime can not be forced. Of the tested implementations, only GNU tar, libarchive bsdtar and star restored atimes. Surprisingly, GNU tar could not be forced to restore atime from GNU format archive. It also required explicit -G option to restore it from the pax format.

Python tarfile, p7zip and Windows archivers do not provide any way to obtain atime or ctime (other than reading raw pax attributes).

Extended file metadata

Sparse files

The support for archiving sparse files is entirely non-standarized. In regular tar archives, the sparse areas are filled up with zeros.

The GNU tar format provides support for sparse fragments in custom extension fields. Up to 4 fragments can be stored within regular header size; if more are necessary, additional blocks with fragment information are appended after the header.

The newer GNU tar versions also three different (all GNU-custom) formats for sparse files in the pax format. They are called 0.0, 0.1 and 1.0 formats respectively.

For completeness, the tests also cover custom sparse file support in the star and xstar formats. The latter is partially compatible with the extended header format used by GNU tar.

Variant group	GNU tar		pax (GNU.*)			star		Extracted
Implementation	small	large	0.0	0.1	1.0	star	xstar	as sparse?
GNU tar	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓	✓
libarchive	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✗	✓
star	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✓	✓	✓
NetBSD pax	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	n/a
busybox	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	n/a
Python	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✗	✓
p7zip	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗
7-Zip	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	n/a
WinRAR	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	n/a

✓: file extracted correctly

✗: file extracted incorrectly or archive rejected

Sparse files are supported only by a few implementations. The most widely supported format is the old GNU format. The GNU pax extensions are supported only by GNU tar, libarchive and Python tarfile module. p7zip supports archives with GNU format sparse files but extracts them as regular (zero-padded) files.

The star format is supported only by the initial implementation. The xstar formats maintains some binary compatibility with the old GNU format, and works with GNU tar. However, other implementations supporting the GNU tar format do not seem that lenient.

Volume label

The volume label is a GNU tar extension. It is supported in GNU tar, star and pax formats.

In GNU tar and star formats, the volume label is added as a special V type member. Technically, this means that non-GNU implementations should extract it as a regular file according to the POSIX ustar specification on handling unknown vendor types.

In pax format, the volume label is written as GNU.volume.label global attribute.

Implementation	GNU	pax	star	Notes
GNU tar	✓	✓	✓	included in -t/-v
libarchive	✓	I	✓
star	W	I	I
NetBSD pax	W+F	P	F
busybox	✗	I	✗
Python	F	I	F
p7zip	✗	P	F
7-Zip	✗	P	F
WinRAR	F	I?	F	proprietary; can't verify pax

✓: file extracted correctly

W: file extracted correctly, warning about file format

I: file extracted correctly, attribute explicitly ignored

F: label extracted as regular (empty) file with mode 0000

P: file extracted correctly, pax headers extracted as files

✗: file rejected as malformed

The GNU volume label feature suffers serious portability problems. Only GNU tar and libarchive provide explicit support for it. Its presence in the GNU format causes multiple archivers to reject the archive altogether. The exact behavior of pax format is hard to determine since the label is normally not extracted; the I/P flags determined by examining the source code.

Multi-volume archives

GNU tar and star support creating multi-volume archives. However, the multi-volume format is mostly intended for tape drives, and is inconvenient (requiring manually typing filenames) for regular files. With files, using split(1) is a better idea.

GNU tar can create multi-volume archives either with GNU tar or pax file format. The former is simpler, and uses special M member type to indicate continuation of file from previous volume. The latter uses GNU.volume.* pax attributes to store continuation info, storing the continued member as regular file. This makes it possible for non-compliant implementations to extract file in parts for concatenation by user.

star can create multi-volume archives in xstar, xustar and exustar formats. All those formats use M member type similarly to GNU tar, plus additional V volume label in the first archive. The xustar format adds more continuation information to the second archive using SCHILY.* pax attributes. The exustar format additionally adds volume information to all volumes using SCHILY.* global pax attributes.

Variant group	GNU tar		star
Implementation	GNU	pax	xstar	xustar	exustar
GNU tar	✓	✓	1	1	1
libarchive	Z	Z	Z	Z	Z
star	✓	W	✓	✓	✓
NetBSD pax	M	M+P	M+F	M+F	M+F+P
busybox	1	1	✗	✗	✗
Python	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗
p7zip	1	1+P	1+F	1+F	1+F+P
7-Zip	1	1+P	1+F	1+F	1+F+P
WinRAR	T	T	T+F	T+F	T+F

✓: file extracted correctly

W: file extracted correctly, warning about unknown pax attrs

1: only first part extracted, continuation archive rejected

Z: only first part extracted, file zero-padded to full size

P: pax headers extracted as files

F: extra data extracted as file

M: continuation archive misread (output malformed)

T: first part extracted only partially (interrupted by error)

✗: archive rejected

As expected, the support for multi-volume archives is poor. GNU tar can only extract its own multi-volume format; star can extract both GNU and its own format. All other tools error out either on truncated file or invalid format (especially in case of star formats).

In some cases, the tools can extract parts of the file from both archives separately, making it possible to manually reconstruct it. However, e.g. libarchive pads the file to full size (preallocates?), and WinRAR apparently does not flush output when erroring out. Furthermore, some tools reject the second and further volumes (e.g. GNU tar on star formats).

Curious enough, the NetBSD pax tool seems to support split(1)-made multi-volume archives explicitly (i.e. request further volumes).

Feature matrix

The following table summarizes the support for most useful formats and their features. Some of the earlier results are skipped because of their unlikely usefulness, e.g. long octet fields since no common implementation writes them.

Please note that the table is focused on rough usefulness and not the details. For example, since volume label has no real implications, it is considered ✓ as long as the archive is accepted; but some pax attributes are considered ✓ only if the relevant property is actually restored.

Format	GNU + base-256									pax
Implementation	p	s	u	m	n	r	l	y	v	p	s	u	g	m	n	t	a	f	x	r	l	v	y
GNU tar	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
libarchive	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓
star	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓	✓	✓
NetBSD pax	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✗
busybox	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✗		✗	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✓
Python	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✓	✗	✓
p7zip	✓	✓	✗	✓	✗	✓	✗		✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✗
7-Zip	✓	✓		✓	✓	✓	✗		✗	✗	✗			✗	✗	✗				✗	✓	✗	✗
WinRAR	✓	✓		✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✗	✓	✓			✗	✗	✗				✗	✓	✗	✓

p: long paths

s: extended size range

u: extended UID/GID range

g: extended user/group names

m: extended mtime range

n: negative mtime

t: extended timestamps (atime, ctime)

a: ACLs

f: file flags

x: extended attributes

r: sparse files

l: volume label

y: (GNU tar) does not create stray file for label

v: multi-volume archives

y: (pax) does not create stray files for pax attributes